A mind full of smells and memories......

Today afternoon at office, just after lunch I was taking a break from work and indulging in one of my favourite activities namely going through one of my favourite blogs "Past Continuous". Sucharita (the creator of the above named thought and nostalgia provoking blog) in her most recent post titled "Nose Talgia" has sure opened the dam which held back the tumultous waves of visual memories which are so deeply attached to our olfactory memories . So ... whatever comes on is all dedicated to you .... friend.
The most enduring smell of my life is that of my Maa in the Prayer room, her freshly bathed presence mingled with the smell of freshly lit incense sticks, sandal wood paste applied to the Gods sitting on her prayer shelf, fresh flowers like Champa, Beli, Jaba plucked from our garden..... This was the smell I and my brother (and later my sister) invariably woke up to. Thinking back, I feel it was more the wonderful, holy smell which woke us up, rather than the 3 times blowing of the conch shell (which my Maa religiously used to do till a year back.. and now she's stopped on doc's advice).

My Babai(dad) coming into the house, with Sunday morning "bajaar", smelling wonderfully of sweat, aftershave(Old Spice), Wills Flake. His left hand laden with a bag full of Potatoes and Onions to last a fortnight.....and a smaller bag somehow also held in the same hand holding Sunday goodies like prawn or...... hilsa and also chicken or ....maybe mutton . The other bag full of green veggies and fruits, fresh and succulent ( which one will be able to relate to only if one has spent the growing up years in a small town.....(Aah Ranchi ! How I miss the town of my childhood ...... far removed from the hurly burly of a Metro!).

The sweet baby smell (a heady concoction of Johnson baby powder, milk and angelic innocence )of my few months old little brother (aah! I can still feel that wonderful warmth, pleasure and pride bubbling over in my small five year old heart as I sit up straight on bed and wait for Maa to tuck him in comfortably on my lap so that she can do the housework on a busy Sunday morning). I revisited the same smell with the same associated feeling, but with more depth, when as a ten year old, on umpteen precious occassions I held my newborn sister close. And now as a mother, I can conjure up the baby smell any time I want to, anywhere I want..... all I need to do is close my eyes, take a deep breath and think of my daughter. I find it a strangely humbling experience....... this smell which remains constant, fresh and powerful in my memory, untainted by the cruelty of passing time over a period of three decades ..........................

Another smell which I feel very strongly about is my " Howrah Baris' ".................. this is the house where my baba, my jethu, my pishi, my sejokaku and my chotokaku grew up in. Just as the people associated with the house grew (in years and in fortune...), the house also added floors and rooms, sported contemporary colours but the essense of the house remained the same. As a kid I looked forward to my summer and winter vacations for 2 months of unadulterated soaking up time of the "Howrah Bari spirit". The wonderful aged fragrance of my "Mum"(my granma), her delicious paranthas fried in Dalda Vanaspati, spicy cauliflower and potato sabzi. She is no more but one look at her almirah(where she hoarded spices, nuts, her sarees, bedsheets and whatnots....) or the family heirloom -an ancient iron chest is enough to conjure an image of her siting on the bed in the corner of the hall and all family clustered around her... some lolling on the bed around her , some on the floor, some on chairs, basking in her presence(this scene was repeatedly enacted during the Durga Pujas when everybody came together.....). My mother and aunts to this day remember her and revere her as the lady who taught them everything they needed to know to run a household efficiently. Wish modern day maas-in-law could take a leaf from her life........

I love the smell of my maa's freshly baked cake (every b'day in the family, christmas, new year and all requests are honoured), her wonderful smelling dhosas & idlis, her dhokas & chole and of course her chilli chicken & very own bangali payas...... the list can go on..... both salivary glands and memory together happily.....working overtime.

I remember the smell of the old big library at my school Bishop Westcott Girls School, Namkum , Ranchi .... musty and old worldish, how the warmth engulfed me when I settled down on one of the old black benches, with a charles dickens or an agatha christie....our English teacher Mrs. Mehra who was also the librarian, with her porcelain skin and twinkling grey eyes , slight 60 year old frame......and crystal clear voice who brought to life all the characters in the shakespeare plays and thomas hardy and charles dickens classics and instilled in me the love for English as a beautiful and expressive language. To this day, my first impulse when I lay my hands on a book, is to take it to my nose and inhale deeply..... funnily enough, books which have smelt good have always been a pleasure to read!!!Haa.....haaa....

There are also smells which are associated with certain difficult phases of life but in this case I chose not to follow the smell trail.......

Let only happy memories prevail!!